


make the candle ready for its flame

by mistralle



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, M/M, Open Ending, Space!AU, UST, other planets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:46:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3982006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistralle/pseuds/mistralle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the needs of many outweigh the needs of few. When this time comes it's good not to have any regrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	make the candle ready for its flame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spicedpiano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicedpiano/gifts).



> Happy belated birthday, spicedpiano!
> 
> Special thanks to euphorbic and Kerneselda for beta-reading. You are wonderful xDD
> 
> The name of the planet and the title are taken from Dante's "Paradiso". 
> 
> The Love that calms this heaven always welcomes  
> into Itself with such a salutation,  
> to make the candle ready for its flame (Canto XXX)

The fields were lovely silvery lavender, and Charles walked them with dull fascination, alien gravity dragging his heels down. The Shadow King was a silent weight in the back of his mind, a sated mass of self-aware, sadistic hunger. Charles breathed, and this simple action suddenly acquired countless aspects he had failed to perceive before, from the slight hitch in the hissing of the air-tank to the nearly unperceivable way the suit dug under his third rib on the right.

Charles drank in the glorious plains of Empyrean and reveled in how wondrous living was.

The dark shadow of Onslaught cast its shape on the silver plain, a miniscule twig in the distance. Charles’ crew chattered on the open channel, the joy of surviving a near-death experience as heady as the best liquor in White Haven’s restaurants. Charles heard Erik’s teasing comments, and he could have wept—it’d been years since his friend sounded this happy, this carefree. 

Onslaught was getting ready to leave this planet behind. The crew seemed giddy, their happiness bubbling like a flute of champagne. It somewhat eased for Charles the brunt of what he had to do.

“All aboard?” he asked as casually as possible, biting down on his fear and pain. 

“Oh, here he is!” crowed Moira, her voice shaking with laughter. “Aye, Captain, my Captain, everyone is aboard. The ship is yearning for your tread as a bride yearns for her lover… Wherever are you, Captain?”

The channel rang with laughter and Charles heard Erik’s voice in the chorus, drunk on newfound freedom and safety.

“Prepare for the launch,” Charles forced out through his clenching throat. “We leave as soon as I’m back.”

He walked the rest of the way to the drop, where the field ended abruptly, presenting him with a majestic view of the white-hot salt flat with the slender figurine of the ship the only blemish on its surface. Charles smiled, his heart breaking with love and pride.

It was easy to push them all just a little, their minds trustingly opened to his, vulnerable and pliant. He didn’t dare to think of what the Shadow King would do to them when the time came for him to wake. What he would do to anyone on Earth, grown lax and heavy with decades of peace. The colonies were still alert, still ready for any skirmish: wild worlds, birthing such brilliant individuals as Erik or Logan. But Onslaught was leaving for Earth, sleepy and defenseless against the colossus of a super-telepath mind. His dear family was returning home, and who was he to stand in their way?

They were frighteningly easy to manipulate into believing that he was onboard. Onslaught was a little bit trickier, its consciousness shivering suspiciously. But Charles soothed it with tenderness he reserved only for wounded children, and let himself indulge in the last moments of unity, selfishly clinging to the constant stream of processes.

The joy of the crew dimmed, transforming into the familiar sharp focus of operating mode. Charles was with them, in mind if not in body, and he trailed his mental touch along the beautiful passages of Moira’s purpose, of Armando’s liquid multitasking, of Christopher’s nearly scary stream of calculations and revisions…

Charles didn’t dare touch Erik for the fear that he wouldn’t be able to let go.

The world slowly filled with the thunder of _Onslaught’s_ engines coming to life, a deep rumble echoing in Charles’ bones and rattling his teeth.

_I’m with you,_ he sent to the ship’s consciousness, a constant reminder, the most poisonous of truths. _Are you with me?_ Onslaught would ask, its pseudo-emotions sounding in a nearly scared pitch, and Charles would hasten to reassure it, torn between tenderness and guilt. For it had been years since he infiltrated the shipyard with his best friend, while everyone was fighting in orbit, with ships burning and the whole crews’ minds shuffled away like birthday candles. They were young, Erik’s seventeen against Charles’ thirteen and a half, and Charles hadn’t planned on hurting anyone. He’d only thought of helping his friend find some peace, and if it meant helping him fight to let out a fraction of burning inferno locked in his heart, then that was what Charles had intended to do.

They’d let themselves aboard, the yet-nameless vessel dark and silent with the promise of life. Only just built, its matrix had been blank, protocols not yet installed. Had the Onslaught been not such a tabula rasa at that time, both of them wouldn’t have gotten so far.

Erik had helped Charles to strap himself into a chair that was far too big for his small frame, and then he had wired himself into the system, seizing the controls with his ability, ship’s emotional centers lighting up with the reflected turmoil. Charles had failed to think about how the barely leashed beast had been reveling in this, how the fires of Erik’s hate blazed brighter, how the rage transmuted slowly into bloodlust.

It had been his failure, and when he’d realized that something was wrong, they had been already launching, his mind tied closely with Erik’s, killing intent pouring into what seemed to be Charles’ soul with liquid-metal viscosity. The pain had been blinding, and still they flew, slaying the Hellfire ships with mindless ruthlessness, Erik’s glee and the mortal terror of the dying enemies ripping Charles’ mind apart. He’d howled voicelessly into the boiling texture of the ship’s consciousness, having lost the ability to communicate with his body. 

Erik’s pleasure slid over Charles’ nerves and lit them aflame, battling successfully against Charles’ own emotions, and back then it had seemed to be the most fundamental violation Charles ever survived. 

Erik hadn’t stopped with the enemy vessels. In the end, they’d blasted Admiral Stryker’s flagship, Unity. And that had been the thing to topple the pyramid of suffering building in Charles’ mind. He’d managed to scream, and Erik managed to snap out of his battle trance. 

Even now Charles couldn’t recollect the following days. His mind had been badly burned, emotional shields reduced to smithereens. The only thing he remembered more or less clearly were Erik’s trembling hands on his cheeks and Erik’s deathly pale face.

They had been parted for years, with Erik tried and imprisoned in the Special Center, and Charles smothered by the extensive care of the Piloting Corps. 

But it was Onslaught who suffered most, an unforeseen last victim of the war won and ended. It spent years killing its captains and avoiding detection. With its psyche primed for killing, the peace was a detestable thing, and were it not for Admiral Essex, who transferred Charles aboard, the pinnacle of military engineering would have been decommissioned and blown up.

_Are you with me?_ Onslaught had asked when Charles touched his interface for the second time in his life. _Are you staying with me?_

And Charles had had to swallow against the lump in his throat, for here it was, his poor creature, his and Erik’s mutilated son, abandoned, deserted. How could he deny it the most basic thing anyone could ask for, the comfort of someone else’s company? 

_Are you with me?_

I am, now and always.

Charles felt the ground shake beneath his feet when Onslaught touched off its landing. The roar was deafening, the sweetest music in the universe.

He stayed at his post, both standing on the edge of the valley and bearing the pains of acceleration with his crew, soothing their suffering much to their indignation. 

“What’s with you?” Erik’s voice mockingly croaked through the headpiece. “Have you forgotten that we are not your Academy fledglings?” 

Charles sighed and looked at the air level in the tank. He had only ten minutes left.

The worst punishment anyone could ever devise for him was to leave him blameless. He had been lounging in his hospital bed while Erik had stood trial; he had been receiving praises from his teachers and respect from his peers while Erik had to survive unimaginable horrors; he had graduated with honours, and Erik had been slapped with a controlling collar round his neck and sold to the military like an animal, like a thing to be used. 

He’d only just won the right to take the collar off, and Charles wouldn’t be there to see it.

He started the process of transferring his authority to Erik, which would finalize with Charles’ death. By the time his heart stopped, they’d already be in subspace, and it would be too late to turn back.

Erik’s mind roiled with repressed suspicion. He’d always been too logical for his own good. Soon, he’d remember that it is impossible to kill a telepath as strong as the Shadow King without his mind transferring to another body, and then it would be a nightmare to suppress him. 

The ship left the atmosphere behind and Charles exhaled slowly. Just a few minutes more, and he’d be able to let go. 

It was a good mission, just how he liked them. Interesting, taxing, dangerous, and he was incredibly satisfied with its results. He’d managed to get Erik transferred to their ship, he’d showed him the beautiful, cruel world Charles lived in, the distant space among planets yet untrodden by human steps, brimming with alien life and waiting to be explored. He’d showed Erik the thrill of soloing the expeditions, without any authorities to control them, with only their teammates to rely upon, and he had seen the light return to his friend’s eyes. 

They managed to vanquish the biggest threat to their home after Hellfire’s fleet, and that also meant something. Or, would mean, after the last traces of the Shadow King were gone.

Charles unlatched the helmet and slowly took it off, holding his breath. He could stave off his death for a couple of minutes more, just enough for everyone to disappear from the Shadow King’s horizon. The wind that touched his heated skin seemed to be sizzling. The Lethe grass was in bloom, its huge fluffy pollen fleeting through the air like feathers after the spring shedding in the bird preserve on Earth.

Onslaught started the last pre-jump maneuver, and Charles smiled, slowly exhaling. Forty-five seconds more. Less than a minute, and he could do it, even if his eyes burned, overflown with tears, even though his skin was crawling and bile was rising in his throat.

“Charles?” suddenly called Erik, his voice laden with confusion. “Charles!” His mind spiked in panic, but Charles didn’t have any power left to calm him down. 

Onslaught dashed forward, the vortex of nothingness opening to send them back home, all of them, confused and yet to realize the extent of his betrayal.

_Are you with me?_ Onslaught sent him. _Till my last breath,_ Charles confirmed, and gasped in the sweetest poison of Empyrean’s atmosphere.

The link broke.


End file.
